The Legend of the Condor Heroes

"If that's true, why were you in a fight just now?" Zhu Cong asked again.

"Because they started it."

"So what are you going to do when you see your enemy, Duan Tiande?" Ke Zhen'E asked in a heavy tone.

"I'll kill him to avenge my father!" Just hearing that name made a fiery glare flash from Guo Jing's young eyes.

"Your father was an expert in martial arts yet was still killed by him; how could you kill him if you don't know any martial arts? How can you get your revenge then?" Ke Zhen'E rendered Guo Jing speechless with those questions.

"See? You have to learn some martial arts." Han Xiaoying concluded for him.

"See that peak over there?" Zhu Cong pointed at a deserted mountain top to his left. "If you want to learn martial arts and get your revenge then come to the top of that mountain tonight at midnight. But you have to come by yourself. Besides this little friend of yours, you can't let anybody else find out about it. Brave enough to do it; afraid of ghosts?"

Guo Jing was still stupidly standing there, but Tolui was getting impatient.

"Come on, teach me, please!"

Zhu Cong suddenly grabbed his wrist, hooked his left foot behind him, and gently tripped him, sending Tolui onto the ground.

"Why did you trip me?" Tolui angrily demanded once he got back up off the ground.

"That was martial arts, did you learn it?" Zhu Cong smiled as he answered. As it turned out, Tolui was quite smart and understood right away. He mimicked Zhu Cong and showed the move against an imaginary foe.

"Teach me something else." He said to Zhu Cong. Zhu Cong faked a punch toward Tolui's face. Tolui dodged to the left, but Zhu Cong's right fist was waiting there for him. This punch had no force behind it and stopped the moment it touched Tolui's nose.

"Yay! Teach me something else!" Tolui was ecstatic. Zhu Cong suddenly braced himself and gently bumped his shoulders squarely into the little kid's stomach; sending him flying off. Quan Jinfa jumped up, caught him in mid air, and gently put him back onto the ground.

"Mister, teach me something else!"

"If you master those three moves, most adults won't be able to beat you, enough is enough." Zhu Cong smiled and told him before turning towards Guo Jing. "Did you get them?"

Guo Jing was still dumbstruck and not really thinking of anything as he absent mindedly shook his head. When compared to the smart and intelligent Tolui, Guo Jing seemed incredibly stupid and slow to the Seven Freaks, who were very disappointed at this turn of events. Han Xiaoying let out a long sigh and her eyes reddened.

"I say that we stop wasting energy and just take the mother and son back south and hand them over to Qiu Chuji. As for the competition, let's just admit defeat." Quan Jinfa observed.

"This kid's make up is just too hopeless; he's not the kungfu practicing type." Zhu Cong agreed.

"There isn't a bit of fight in him; I don't see how it's going to work either." Han Baoju also agreed and the Seven Freaks began discussing the matter amongst themselves in their Southern dialects.

"You two can go home now." Han Xiaoying waved at the two little kids. Tolui grabbed hold of Guo Jing's hand and they happily skipped off.

Having searched for six long and hard years all over the boundless Steppe, the Seven Freaks were joyous beyond description when they finally found Guo Jing. As it turned out, the joy was only temporary; when they discovered that the kid was so dumb that it would be incredibly difficult for him to ever amount to much as a martial artist. They could not help feeling defeated. This set back could only be matched by the one they would experience had they, in fact, never found Guo Jing. Han Baoju, whip in hand, was relentlessly beating the ground, trying to vent his frustration and nobody could get him to stop. All this time, only the Wood Chopper of the Southern Mountains, Nan Xiren, remained silent.

"Well, what do you think, Fourth Brother?" Ke Zhen'E asked.

"Very good." Nan Xiren replied.

"What's very good?" Zhu Cong inquired.

"The kid's very good," he added.

"Fourth Brother always acts as if speaking costs him money." Han Xiaoying said, letting the frustration get to her. "He will never say a word more than he has to."

"I was also very dumb as a kid." Nan Xiren gently smiled. He was always very quiet and every word that he spoke had already been carefully thought over, meaning that he was rarely wrong.

Hearing him, the other six Freaks found a glimmer of hope and instantly became more confident.

"Right…that's right! Since when have I been smart?" Zhang Ahsheng agreed, looking in Han Xiaoying's direction.

"Let's wait and see if he's got the guts to come tonight." Zhu Cong suggested.

"I say most likely not." Quan Jinfa replied. "I'm going to go find where he lives first."

He jumped off of his horse and trailed far behind Tolui and Guo Jing until he saw them walking into their own gers.

That night, the Seven Freaks waited on the deserted mountain top. It was fifteen minutes to ten and the Big Dipper had noticeably changed its position, but Guo Jing was nowhere to be seen.

Han Baoju sighed, "The Seven Freaks of the South never lost to anyone in our lives. But in the end, we lose to that Taoist priest."

Zhu Cong said, "The Quanzhen Sect is fighting the Jurchens in the north and helping the poor Chinese citizens there. Everything the sect does is chivalrous and admirable. The Seven Masters of Quanzhen are great martial arts experts and honorable individuals, Qiu Chuji is even said to be the most exceptional one of the Seven Masters. Losing to him won't damage our good name. Furthermore, we are trying to save the lives of survivors of an honorable man, which is a good deed. When people in Wulin learn of this, they can only praise us and say: "Well done!""

The other six Freaks agreed and felt better.

Looking to the west, dark clouds were gathering on top of each other off on the horizon. But above their heads not a cloud could be seen in the dark blue sky. The winds were swirling around them from the northwest; sometimes it would gust, other times it would be still. In the middle of the sky hung the bright moon, but a faint yellow ring could be discerned around it.

"Looks like there's going to be a storm tonight." Han Xiaoying observed. "The kid is not going to come."

"Then let's go to him tomorrow morning." Zhang Ahsheng replied.

"Being a little slow is not a big problem. But if this kid is afraid of the dark… Ay!" Ke Zhen'E sighed and shook his head.

The seven of them were just wandering around when Han Baoju suddenly spotted something in a bush. "Hey what's that?" He pointed at three piles of white objects that looked awfully strange in the moon light.

Quan Jinfa walked over to investigate only to discover that they were human skulls placed neatly in three piles.

"It must have been those little kids that piled up the skulls like that." He laughed before suddenly noticing something else. "What…Second brother, come quickly!"

The sudden change in the tone of his voice was easily noticeable and unsettling for everyone. Other than Ke Zhen'E, the other Freaks made their way over to him.